


What's Next

by maggiemerc



Series: How To Process Plane Crashes And Other Catastrophic Events [1]
Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Pathos, Short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-28
Updated: 2012-09-28
Packaged: 2017-11-15 05:04:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/523450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maggiemerc/pseuds/maggiemerc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five o’clock has come and gone and Derek is left wondering what to do next.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What's Next

**Author's Note:**

> I am shattered. Putting this out to make the feels less.

Derek was accustomed to knowing exactly where he was going. He’d known he wanted to be a doctor since high school. He knew he wanted to marry Meredith all of a week after he met her. He could go into an OR and know exactly what course of action he would take.

He did not second guess himself. He did not ponder things. He moved forward relentlessly because it was the only way he knew how to exist.

When his father died Derek was given a blueprint on how to properly grieve. He had his mother and sisters as guides and Mark standing behind him at the funeral and then sneaking into his room with a stolen bottle of Jack that night. They drank until they threw up and then sat on the roof and watched the sun rise.

Derek had never twisted in the breeze. He’d had Seattle when Addison betrayed him. And he’d had his marriage when the shooting might have overwhelmed him. After Jen Harmon died and he’d been lower then he thought he could be he had Meredith.

And he had Mark.

It was only after he’d picked Zola up from the nursery and saw Sofia sitting there waiting for parents who weren’t there and one who would never come that he realized he hadn’t a clue what he was doing or what he should be doing.

His hand was numb. His wife was off trying to fix herself and her best friend. And his best friend was being slid into a cooler a few floors below him.

Depression. He could feel it at the fringes of his brain. He knew what was coming. The inability to get up. The lack of desire for anything. He needed…something.

Callie rounded the corner wiping her eyes and jostling her keys and startled at finding him and Zola in the hallway.

They shared a look.

They’d never been friends. They’d be tied to each other only by their love for Mark.

They didn’t know much about each other beyond gossip (usually delivered by Cristina or Mark).

They had kids sure.

And they were surgeons.

But she looked at him and smiled like the world was okay and he smiled back knowing it wasn’t.

The understanding was instantaneous.

“I talked to the funeral home,” she said. She was trying not to cry. Derek didn’t like tears. His sister would cry seeing roadkill and it made him uncomfortable—it was one of the reasons he loved Meredith. She wasn’t a cryer either. “They’re picking up the body tomorrow.”

He nodded. He’d been Mark’s friend since childhood but it was Callie that had been made his proxy. She was the one managing his estate and she was the one seeing to…Mark must have realized Derek wouldn’t have had it in him to do it.

“So,” her voice cracked, “I’m gonna take Sofia home.” She smiled again. 

But Derek knew everything unsaid. He knew about the wife who sat at home in silence. Robbins ran out of tears after the first night. She turned to stone and the world chipped away at her until she shattered. Now there were only pieces left and eyes that glared balefully at Callie.

No one talked about Robbins at work. It was easier to ignore the wrath stewing in the apartment across the street. Easier to pretend Callie was a widow and one day she’d be okay again and her wellness wouldn’t be contingent on another person.

“Come home with me,” he said.

Her eyes grew wide and she stumbled over a response.

“Meredith is at the airport again so Zola and I are on our own for dinner. Mark…he said Sofia likes spaghetti?”

She smiled and though she was grateful he thought he saw resignation in it. And the grief. That grief that drug them both down.

He didn’t know what he was going to do, but he knew how to make spaghetti. 

 


End file.
